Best CO2 inflators: Fast tyre inflation in small packages

These little gizmos are excellent if you want to pump up your tyres FAST. They’re incredibly simple, all of them act as a valve. Screw a CO2 canister on one end, screw the other onto your valve and either turn a knob or just press down and with a short blast of pressurised gas, you’re good to go. Unless you’re racing and need the smallest, lightest setup possible, then I see them as an accompaniment to, rather than a replacement for the best bike pumps though we have discussed which is best. That being said, even the best gravel tyres sometimes unseat if they go flat, and a blast of carbon dioxide is far more likely to reseat them than your frantic pumping.

The best CO2 inflators you can buy today

Given the simplicity of these products, there’s a lot less differentiation between them, and they all achieved the desired outcome of popping air into my tyres. The ones without valves tended to over-inflate, but then you just let a bit out from the tyre when you’re done. There are a few with special features like gauges, and many come with a protective sleeve as the Joule-Thomson effect (a change of temperature from the expansion of gasses) makes them frost up when in use, but in short all of them work well enough that you really can pick what you fancy without fear.